WWMT just broke the news.

http://www.wwmt.com/news/university_3546..._dunn.html

They said Dunn is the "only finalist." That's an odd way to say he's the new prez.

That's because he's not the new pres. "officially" until the trustees approve his contract on April 27.

Well, if he can get enrollement back up and support football and basketball I will be happy. Probably not going to be "floyd" like but god I hope he is not "Bailey" like. I found it interesting that the Board member that was qouted in the Couch article about Cubit's salary is the same guy that is on the release from the university about the new president.

Frankly I dont think enrollment needs to get back up to 30000. I personally think that was too high, and we did not have enough people nor infrastructure in place to accomidate that. 25-26k is fine. It's manageable and we can provide the services for that population.

where do you think we can't handle that number? Seems like we still have plenty of room in the dorms. We have the new parkview complex they have redone some buildings. 25,000 or so was the number when I was in school and it seemed that there were alot of "stuff" that was not being used. Do you mean faculty? Right now the numbers mean money which we need alot of right now.

From some of the material I read on him it sounds like he's a big supporter of collegiate athletics and believes they can be a big help in promoting a school. He referenced SIU's success in basketball has helped to create a better image and promoting tool for their school. My initial impression is that this is a good hire. But of course only time will tell.

He is coming from a school that has been great at basketball and been a good div. Iaa football program under Kill even thou they have had alot of "hired" guns. I believe some are mistaking the Carbondale part to mean that it is not THE SIU. It is the one we have watched in the NCAA tourny. The "other" one is SIUE which Dunlap is up for the head coaching job of. I think this is a good sign even though he was the interim I believe.

If you talk to people who have applied to Western and MSU, many will tell you that MSU is more user friendly in terms of student services (Financial aid, housing, scheduling).

Yeah, I think we have all the great buildings, and a good teacher to student ratio. Where we drop the ball is in helping those first year parents and students who need to be led by the hand through much of the process. We are getting better at it. Deiter mentioned that student services doubled its staff.

We are competing for MSU students and to a lesser extent GVSU students. We are not a regional college like EMU or CMU. We have to get more in place at the front door, including marketing, student services, orientations, etc. We have to stop thinking Michigan, and think Northern Indiana and Chicago. If you cant get the customer into the store, it doesnt matter what you have to sell.

Quote:If you talk to people who have applied to Western and MSU, many will tell you that MSU is more user friendly in terms of student services (Financial aid, housing, scheduling).

I applied to both. I can tell you I chose Western because we had a less restrictive housing policy than MSU. State wants to force people to live in certain ways and restrict their students from off campus living and having cars. That was a drawing point that I chose WMU over them for.

Also, we need to heavily go after the people GVSU are bringing in. Their numbers have continually went up, while ours has been on the decline for 3-4 years. We also hit the Chicago market hard. I'd heard last year from CAB that something like 2 out of every 5 students are from Illinois.

I know that the AD is happy with this selection.

I am in total agreement about improving our student services.

I am not sure if anything has changed since I finished up there a few years back, but when I was there the Advising/Admissions staff were beyond horrible at several of the different colleges on campus. Many were unfriendly and completely unwilling to want to work with you. I understand that they get some boneheads looking for an easy way out sometimes, but many times students have legit issues and need assistance from those types of staff members.

I was in the business college for my undergrad and getting any assistance out of those folks was like pulling teeth. This is assuming you could get in to talk to one of them. If you wanted an appt, it would take weeks since they only offered those on Fridays. Monday-Thursday was walk in only and always packed.

Don't even get me started on the College of Ed advising/admissions staff. They made no appts. It was always only walk in. I went in there looking for information on the graduate/masters program I was interested in. They pretty much blew me off and told me that since I was not an Ed undergrad to get lost.

Well it's a good thing I took the initiative to track down the department head for the masters program. I told him what happened and he was stunned and said that was totally inaccurate and got me started on what I needed to do to get into the program.

I probably would have never gotten my masters from WMU had I not been able to track him down. Having staff like I described in student service type of areas like advising/admissions cannot happen cause WMU will lose students and perspective students (like I was for graduate work) to other schools due to that.

I only hope things have changed since I finished up my grad work there in 2004. My gut feeling though is they have not cause it only got worse in my years at WMU from 1998-2004.

Thank you for most of your support that WMU athltetics and specifically Basketball should be recruiting the Chicagoland area.

Someone pointed out in an earlier post some % rate of college students that narrow down or make their selections heavily based on the aura of that schools image, an image significantly shaped by the success of revenue producing mens sports.

IF the new President is fully aware that hand in hand relationship of success on the field and being a draw to the overall student population he has a leg up than if starting from scratch.

First, the football facilities are second to none for the level of competition.
UA is fine but the end zone seating is visual unappealing.

Second, both revenue producing sports have good coaches and programs poised to be relatively successful for the next couple years.

Third, WMU has an appealing campus and it is easily accessed by air, rail and highway.

The lack of student participation, not just attendance at sporting events is an underlying issue. Historically, WMU does not have that "successful athletic" draw that UM, MSU or even GVSU have. Albeit different levels.

Therefore, aside from state funding, no minor ingredient, the buzz generated from successful revenue sports is critical. The President down to the AD can drive that.

Here's to that not being lost on the new President and the Board of Trustees.

nm

So is this a Dunn deal? lmfao :clap2: :moon2: :jimdonnankungfu: :dance: :banme:

:withstupid:

Only 8 more posts and I go from Water Engineer to Bench Warmer

I wonder what you become when you have 15,000? 8 years of posting on BI, down the drain. Post totals should be transferable.

Flash, when I graduated last year, nothing had really changed from what you described. Looking back on it now, it was terrible, but at the time I just looked at things like counseling visits as a necessary evil.

My favorite business college advising office visit was when I had to turn in all the paperwork for my internship to get it reviewed. They told me after I waited for an hour to see someone during the walk-in hours that they could only review my paperwork during an appointment and not during walk-in hours.

So I was annoyed since I waited an hour but said fine, let's make an appointment. The next open appt they had was a month down the road.

Completely ridiculous if you ask me. If a business provided that type of customer support, they wouldn't last very long.

Got way too much of the same "pass the buck" treatment when my son enrolled at WMU. MSU was bend over backwards cooperative when my other son enrolled. I will say, things were better this year. Got in and out of the "bird cage" (student services) much quicker.

I never really had a problem at the Bird Cage. They were always fairly nice to me. Just had issues with the local advising offices for the colleges and the overall administration office.